In the current financial crisis the necessity of a common EU economic policy has become obvious. The goals of a common economic policy have been formulated already for a long time in the EU Treaties, in particular:

to guarantee steady expansion, balanced trade and fair competition,

to strengthen the unity of the national economies and to ensure their harmonious development,

to achieve a high level of employment,

to organize a closer coordination of economic policies and sustained convergence of the economic performances of the Member States.

In the framework of a market economy, the economic policies’ general function is to prevent and to fight ageinst disturbances of a steady and balanced economic development.

At the beginning of the formulation of a common economic policy must stand the continuous observation of the economic development of each individual Member State. Joint consideration of imbalances, which are contrary to the common objectives, should provide the European economic policya with a concrete orientation. The current discussions in the European Member States show the great importance of public knowlege about economic realities and problems of each Member State and of the single market as a whole.

A fair and objective presentation of the national economic problems is a precondition for the acceptance of a common economic policy in the public of the Member States.

In the beginning of 2012 the European Commission has presented a new surveillance procedure for the prevention and correction of macroeconomic imbalances – called the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure – MIP. You will find here a page with some short information and a link to the MIP webpage.

While the European Commission’s Scoreboard for the Surveillance of Macroeconomic Imbalances is focussed on observations signalling potentially harmful imbalances and losses of competitivenes at an early stage of their emergence, the author’s political intention is to help understand the genesis of such imbalances. You will find some short remarks on the authors view on page: The Author’s View.

On the Observatory site you will find information on the economic development of all EU Member States between 1998 and 2011 in form of downloadable charts, which are based on statistics from EUROSTAT (one set of charts for each Member State), to make visibleimportant long term and short term economic developments. These observations are focussed on potential imbalances.Charts for 5 groups of Member States have been formed for reasons of clarity. They visualize the differences of economic developments between the Member States.